I walked through the alleyways inside the Holy Kingdom, following William.
We turned left, then entered to the right… For ordinary streets, they were tangled together and more complicated than I’d expected.
Not that they were impossible to memorize,
but there was no need to bother.
- Whoosh.
After all, the place we were about to enter was inside a special barrier, so unless William permitted it, no one could come in.
Then what about the man I’d seen at the tavern before?
“I allowed him in on purpose.”
So he said.
“Why? Considering you even put up a barrier, it seems like an important place.”
“It was just… a feeling. I felt as though I should. This old man’s intuition is surprisingly useful, you see. Hearing what you’ve told me now, it was likely the Lord God’s will, meant to connect you and this old man.”
At some point, a stereotype had formed in my head that old men often said and did incomprehensible things,
but seeing this, it seemed less like a stereotype and more like a fact.
Depending on how you looked at it, it just sounded like a roundabout way of saying he didn’t think things through…
Anyway,
the inside of the barrier was extremely quiet.
It had a sacred atmosphere, mysterious and dreamlike, even reverent.
Especially the white tree standing at the center of the barrier. That was the highlight.
- Step.
William stopped in front of the tree.
Then,
- Ding!
A bell rang out from somewhere,
“Huh…?”
- Whoooooosh!!!
And suddenly, the buildings around us were pushed backward as the space expanded.
- Whoosh…
By the time the expansion stopped, a large clearing had formed with the tree at its center.
“This is where you will train from now on. Time flows more slowly here than outside, so it will be of great help to you.”
“You can do that too?”
Slowing time.
It wasn’t impossible with high-circle magic, but even those spells merely slowed time temporarily.
The idea that time would continue to flow slowly the entire time one was inside this space didn’t make sense according to my common sense.
If that were possible, the world would already be ruled by mages.
“Hmm… To explain it simply, you are now inside a dream. Your body is being protected within the barrier.”
“Oh…”
“And since it is a dream, naturally time may flow more slowly.”
“Aha…”
I more or less understood what he meant.
Uh… so…
He was saying not to misunderstand it as time magic.
Right…?
Anyway,
“This old man’s goal is to raise you to the threshold of Master here. As you likely realized after seeing this old man’s sword last time, what you currently lack is not so much swordsmanship as matters related to aura.”
“That’s true. Thinking about it recently, I realized even I don’t know much about my own inner image.”
“That is only natural. Your inner image was given to you by the world. Your aura is what is called Karmic Fire.”
Huh?
The place that appeared when I manifested my inner image was Mount Tusnis, though?
Since aura is greatly influenced by one’s inner image, shouldn’t it be Holy Flame, not Karmic Fire?
“Karmic Fire?”
“Indeed. Unlike Holy Flame, it is a demon-annihilating flame whose existence ordinary people cannot even know.”
According to William, this was not something written in ordinary scriptures, but something that could be learned from the murals in a temple hidden underground in the Holy Kingdom, one not revealed to the public.
In the beginning, when the demonic crossed the threshold of the world and threatened the human realm, the Lord God Lunia used that flame to drive them back.
That flame was called Karmic Fire.
“If there is a difference from Holy Flame, it is that Holy Flame is a flame of protection, meant to guard.”
“I see.”
“Also, the murals record that during the Age of Myth, the Lord God Lunia stayed in this world for a time. However, due to some event, She departed for a higher place, and before leaving, She promised that if the day ever came when the demonic threatened the world as before, She would send Her proxy into the world.”
“Then when you said it was a flame an ordinary human shouldn’t possess…”
“That is because no one but the Lord God’s proxy can possess it. No matter how much a human tries to imitate it by shaping their inner image, they cannot. It is bestowed by Heaven.”
“Haa…”
“The reason I told you to hunt monsters during this investigation was also to confirm whether your aura possessed the same power to annihilate the demonic as Karmic Fire. As a result, you did possess it. The same demon-annihilating attribute as the Hero.”
After hearing everything he had to say, I felt as though I had just learned the secret of my birth.
“Then… it’s certain that I’m the proxy?”
“That would be the case.”
I told William about my past.
About how I had been an orphan as a child, and how when I lost consciousness and woke up, I was on Mount Tusnis, and so on.
I wanted William to judge after hearing it.
After all, if it was something an ordinary human couldn’t possess, that might mean I wasn’t human.
In fact, the reason I’d been an orphan might have been because I was something that suddenly popped into existence from the heavens.
The strange things happening to me recently couldn’t be explained by my common sense either.
I was a little confused about my identity, about what exactly I was.
After hearing that story,
“Hmm…”
William let out a low hum.
“I know you must be sufficiently confused. But from this point on, I do not think I can tell you. As I said before, if I am to tell you everything about your aura, your realm must at least reach Master.”
Frustrated by his answer, I asked,
“I’ve been curious since last time, but is there a reason I have to become a Master before you can tell me?”
Honestly, it was a question I’d wanted to ask since last time.
No, because common sense said this made no sense.
That was like saying there was an age requirement to learn that 1+1=2.
Why not just tell me? Why did he keep saying there were conditions;;
“In truth, though I said I could tell you once you became a Master, this old man had no intention of telling you about it.”
“????”
“Some things are more valuable when obtained through trial and error than when the answer is simply spoon-fed to you. I can say for certain that if this old man were to tell you even that, your growth would become far slower.”
…
Sigh…
Yes, sure. Of course.
I’m sure he had some reason!!!!!
Judging by how far William went in saying that, he was probably right.
But right or wrong aside,
let’s see if I ever have a conversation with an old man again.
From now on, I declare that old men and I are enemies.
If there is one old-man hater in this world, that would be me, and… so on and so forth.
Fuck.
“That aside, take up your sword first. It is true that aura is more of a problem than your swordsmanship, but there are still areas in your sword that can develop. Come at me using nothing but the sword.”
William said this as he created a sword in midair.
Seeing that it was a steel sword rather than one made of aura, he must have used some sort of technique, just like how he had made time flow more slowly.
“Understood.”
Outwardly, I calmly drew my sword.
But inwardly, I was not calm in the slightest.
I had just become an old-man hater.
My opponent was no ordinary old man, but a Grandmaster old man,
but still,
‘I should at least vent my anger.’
Honestly, even if it weren’t to vent my anger, this was my only chance.
The chance with the highest probability of me beating a Grandmaster.
How often would I get to cross swords with a Grandmaster without using aura?
Besides, it wasn’t as if I was wildly swinging a sword like a beginner.
I’d diligently built up my fundamentals until now, and I thought I had a sufficient chance of winning.
I definitely… thought so.
“Hah… hah…”
Even though I swung my sword for quite a long time and tried various things, I couldn’t land a single proper effective hit on William.
William spoke to me as I caught my breath.
“Until now, you have likely swung your sword against monsters far more often. That is why your fundamentals are decent, and you know a great deal in theory, but your ability to apply that knowledge is still lacking.”
Hearing it, he was right.
When I thought about it, everything I had faced until now had been monsters in the shape of animals.
There had been no particular need to think through psychological warfare or various techniques and use them in detail.
Even the Death Knight, the only one I could have settled things with by sword, I had simply finished off in one blow with my inner image manifestation.
From my perspective, I thought I wouldn’t be bad since I’d run simulations alone and practiced swinging my sword, but I realized that wasn’t the reality.
Ah, but don’t misunderstand.
Of course, it was true that I lacked experience fighting humans or beings in human form.
It was also true that, because of that, I lacked detail.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t possess Expert-level swordsmanship.
It was just that my opponent was bad,
and I was still a little lacking to become a Master.
The reason I lost to William just now was something like this.
There was a swordsmanship concept that, “Under ordinary circumstances, if you receive the opponent’s sword toward your guard, you are in a more advantageous position than they are.”
Since the opponent knew that too, a psychological battle unfolded over those points before the swords met.
William, however, would pretend to easily hand me an advantageous point, then, instead of clashing swords with me, let my blade flow past and naturally take my back.
On top of that, through the strength and softness of his movements, his breathing, the movement of his muscles, and the minute tremors of his sword, he subjected me to high-level mind games using feints.
I had never experienced or even thought about such high-level psychological warfare until now, so of course I had no choice but to fall for it.
‘Thinking about it now, maybe I should have been on guard in advance from the point where my opponent was easily giving me advantageous positions…’
Anyway, that was the feeling.
“Now that I know clearly which parts were the problem, let us begin in earnest.”
After that, I received instruction from William.
Through repeated sparring, I accumulated data on psychological warfare and other things,
and through meditation, I looked into myself and laid the foundation for developing my aura.
Fortunately, it wasn’t as though I had run into as great a wall as I’d expected.
I thought I was lucky.
My swordsmanship improved quickly,
and as for my aura… since it was not a world I had created, but something bestowed upon me by the Lord God, I was a little at a loss as to how to make it my own.
But when I looked back carefully on the past, including the time I manifested my inner image, I realized that although Karmic Fire was a flame meant to annihilate evil, the act of annihilation was ultimately also for the sake of protecting something.
So I was able to find a direction: to connect it to the feeling I had back then, when I resolved to protect someone—especially Bell.
***
I don’t know how much time passed, but for now, time passed.
Apart from the fact that training went smoothly, my realm did not particularly rise.
Well, of course it wouldn’t.
If you could hit Master while sitting in a room, who would go out into real combat?
According to William, if I met a somewhat difficult opponent or someone around my level, my realm could rise quickly.
Apparently, I had enough EXP, but lacked the real combat needed to absorb it, or something.
Anyway,
“About a month should have passed. The Hero’s party should be returning soon as well.”
Finally!
I was escaping this shitty white space.
At first it had seemed pretty and sacred, but though it had been a month outside, it felt like I’d been here far longer than that.
I was sick of white interiors now.
For a while, I didn’t even want to look at the color white itself.
- Whoosh.
I followed William out of the barrier.
“Suuup… haaaa…”
Fresh outside air.
I’d missed it.
Freed from the Room of Time and Spirit,
I felt like tears of emotion were about to come out.
“If you are done enjoying it, let us go now. The Hero’s party should be waiting.”
I followed behind William with excited steps.
‘I’ll be seeing them after so long.’
I was looking forward to seeing how much everyone had grown.